ITV

Tag: Six Feet Under

  • Vodafone launches mobile TV channels

    Vodafone launches mobile TV channels

    MUMBAI: Vodafone UK has announced the launch of its global Mobile TV channels featuring international TV brands, pan-European sports coverage and leading entertainment and documentary programmes. Vodafone’s global Mobile TV channels will be widely available across Vodafone markets from this month.

    According to an official release, the Mobile TV will consist of a variety of formats, highlights of which include shows such as Sex and the City and Six Feet Under from HBO, seasons 1-4 of 24 from Twentieth Century Fox Television, the UEFA Champions League and programming from channels such as MTV and Discovery.

    “With a wide range of ‘good for TV’ handsets, an intuitive, easy to use service and a portfolio of instantly recognisable television brands and programming, the launch of global Mobile TV is a compelling proposition for our customers”, says Chief Marketing Officer at Vodafone, Peter Bamford. “Attracting world class content providers, such as Twentieth Century Fox Television and HBO, ensures the premium quality of this product and underpins our confidence in its widespread adoption.”

    Research conducted by Vodafone clearly demonstrates watching Mobile TV on the move complements television viewing habits at home, indicating likely high consumer demand for this product. The findings include: consumers want well-known TV brands and channels, they like dipping in and out of television as it is an enjoyable way of filling free time, and thus Mobile TV appeals to people’s spontaneity, the release states.

  • Curtains down for HBO series ‘Six Feet Under’

    MUMBAI: The fifth season of the critically acclaimed HBO series Six Feet Under came to an end on 21 August with a futuristic montage depicting the manners in which each of the family would meet his end.

    If the 60 episode show often opened with stark death sequences, the series final opened with a birth. Then the show took a dramatic turn when end part of the final episode segued into a montage that revealed each character’s final moments in life.

    While an elderly Ruth died in bed in 2025, Keith, who married David, met with a tragic end in 2029. David’s end came in the company of Keith’s ghost in 2044. Brenda died in the company of her rother Billy in 2051. Finally, Claire, the youngest member of the family, passed away alone in bed in 2085 at the age of 102.

    Over the five season’s, Six Feet Under won seven Emmys in 32 nominations. In the upcoming 57th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards to be held next month, the show has five nominations including the Best Drama Series prize and the Best Actress in a Drama Series honor.

    A breakout hit for HBO, Six Feet Under was created, co-written and executive produced by Alan Ball, who wrote the hit film American Beauty, winner of five Oscars including Best Picture and Original Screenplay (Ball). Last year, the Producers Guild of America honored Ball and fellow SFU Executive Producers Alan Poul, Robert Greenblatt and David Janollari with the Norman Pelton Producer of the Year Award in Episodic Television – Drama.

    The fourth season of Six Feet Under will be released on DVD this week.

  • ‘Six Feet Under’ will rest in peace

    ‘Six Feet Under’ will rest in peace

    MUMBAI: HBO is preparing to give a quiet burial to its critically acclaimed black comedy Six Feet Under.

    The US cable channel has stated that the upcoming fifth season will be its last. In India the show airs on Zee English and deals with a dysfunctional family who run a funeral home.

    Reports indicate that series creator Alan Ball recently told HBO executives that he felt the show would have run out of creative steam by the end of the upcoming 12-episode season.

    The show stars Peter Krause, Rachel Griffiths, Lauren Ambrose and Frances Conroy. It has been recognised at several award shows including the Golden Globes and the Emmies.

    Production on the fifth season will start on 16 November. However HBO has not decided when the show will air.

    Ball was quoted in a Reuters report saying, “Working on Six Feet Under has been enormously fulfilling creatively, but if the show is about anything, it’s about the fact that everything comes to an end. I will miss working with such enormously talented writers, cast, staff and crew and I’ll always be grateful to HBO for allowing and encouraging us to tell the story we set out to tell in a challenging and uncompromising way.”

  • Channel 4 in hot water over ‘Six Feet Under’ ad campaign

    LONDON: Controversy is not new territory for Britain’s Channel 4. Earlier it drew the ire of UK authorities through shows like the Brass Eye paedophile special, The Autopsy.

    Now its ad campaign for the critically acclaimed show Six Feet Under that pictured glamorous men and women alongside references to “wound filler” and “embalming fluid” has been criticised by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

    A Media Guardian report indicates that the watchdog launched an investigation into press ads for Six Feet Under, which revolves around a family of Los Angeles undertakers. ASA has received over 100 complaints. In India, the show airs on Zee English.

    Channel 4’s promotional campaign, drew its inspiration from the mock television ads for funeral service products such as embalming fluid and wound filler that appeared in the pilot episode of the show.

    The ad campaign is shot in the same style as these spoof ads from the show, which are a pastiche of conventional campaigns for upmarket beauty and fashion brands. One of the ads features a naked head and shoulders shot of a male model, made up to look like a corpse, with an image of a bottle of spoof brand “In Eternum embalming fluid” beside him.

    Defending the strategy, Channel 4 marketing manager, Katie Hayes had been quoted in earlier reports saying: “Six Feet Under embodies the attitudes and values of Channel 4 – innovative, provocative and intelligent. By marketing the Fisher’s funeral business instead of directly marketing the show, we aim to create intrigue and anticipation. Although the campaign focuses on death, the parallels that we draw with the fashion and beauty industry give it a sardonic but tasteful feel.”

    Several media owners are understood to have shown their opposition to the ad campaign by offering Channel 4 such disadvantageous advertising space that the broadcaster decided not to book the ads. The print ads featured in Time Out, the Independent on Sunday Review, the Observer magazine and the Times magazine.

    The ASA complainants said that the campaign could be offensive, particularly to people who had recently lost a loved one. Channel 4 has already been forced to take down a poster campaign for the series after it was deluged with complaints.

  • Zee English shows ‘Sopranos’, ‘Will & Grace’ and ‘Six Feet Under” bag SAG awards

    MUMBAI: Screen Actors Guild presented its coveted Actor statuette for the outstanding motion picture and primetime television performances of 2002 at the 9th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on 9 March 2003.
    Of the 13 awards announced for prime time television, The Sopranos, Will & Grace and Six Feet Under , won five awards. The three shows are prime time properties on Zee English in India.


    The awards were won for the following categories:
    For outstanding performance by a male actor in a drama series — James Gandolfini for his role as Tony Soprano in The Sopranos.
    For outstanding performance by a female actor in a drama series- Edie Falco for her role as Carmela Soprano in The Sopranos .
    For outstanding performance by a male actor in a comedy series – Sean Hayes for his role as Jack McFarland in Will & Grace .
    For outstanding performance by a female actor in a comedy series – Megan Mullally for Will & Grace .
    For outstanding performance by an ensemble in a drama series- Six Feet Under .
    “The SAG Awards for the programmes on Zee English reaffirm our commitment to offer viewers, the very best of English entertainment from around the world. In fact majority of the programmes on Zee English are winners of the coveted SAG and Emmy awards over the years. With the impending launch of She Spies, Six feet Under, Hidden Hills and latest seasons of properties already running on the channel, we will be taking the channel proposition of offering the World’s Best, even further,” Zee English and Zee MGM business head Ashwini Pai is quoted as saying in an official release.


    Honored with individual awards at the SAG awards also were Daniel Day-Lewis, Christopher Walken, Renée Zellweger and Catherine Zeta Jones for performances in motion pictures and Stockard Channing, Edie Falco, James Grandolfini, Sean Hayes, William H Macy and Megan Mullally for performances in television.

  • ‘Six Feet Under’ site goes beyond the grave

    ‘Six Feet Under’ site goes beyond the grave

    NEW YORK : Life. Death. Guilt. Afterlife. The daily routine for the Fisher family can involve some grave issues, especially when it comes to running the family’s grief management business. 

    As the third season of the Emmy winning HBO series kicks off in the US on 2 March, Six Feet Under fans can get an in depth look at the lives of the show’s complex characters and the making of the critically-acclaimed original series on the official Six Feet Under web site at HBO.com.

    In India, the show is all set to debut on Zee English next month. The site has come up with experimental features that allow fans to go behind the scenes, exploring the intimate lives of the principal characters. One can see the new episodes through the eyes of creators and crew members in Post Mortem interviews. Taking a metaphysical pit-stop with the Fishers, examining the nooks and crannies of the Six Feet Under subconscious at The Wake are some features offered. In addition, one can access the real story on the victims of every opening sequence by reading detailed obituaries.

    After each new Sunday night episode, HBO.com will feature a Post Mortem interview with post-show analysis by directors, writers, producers, special effects people, the show’s mortuary advisor and much more. Fans will learn how the show’s costume designer, Jill Ohanneson, gets clothes purchased from Walmart or Sears to have “that patina of feeling like it’s part of someone’s closet.” Or discover how Alan Ball’s examination of physics led him to the overall theme for season three.

    After the 2 March premiere episode a site section The Wake will feature a unique montage of video moments, images and dialogue that give viewers a voyeuristic peek inside the characters thoughts and motivations. The most devoted viewers will even find a few “Easter Eggs” hidden in Wake episodes every week featuring personal tidbits such as text messages or journal entries from their favourite characters.

    It remains to be seen though whether the dramatic irony and dark, situational humour of the show jells with the Indian viewer.